Wedding Superstars

August 11, 2015

It wasn’t long after Nikki got engaged that she asked if Ellie could be her flower girl. Ellie was barely a year old and couldn’t walk but of course I said yes! I knew she had more than a year to master walking in a straight line, and I figured that if she couldn’t handle it, the ring bearer could just pull her in a wagon.

Since Nikki chose the flower girl, her fiancé, Orry, was given the task of selecting the ring bearer. Five months before the wedding I received a panicked message from Nikki: “Orry doesn’t know anybody with kids! Will Topher be the ring bearer?!?!” It took some convincing (and outright bribery!) but Topher finally agreed. (It helped when I told him he could dress up – though he thought I meant dress up as in “dress up as Darth Vader” until a week before the wedding!)

I was worried about how they would behave, but the kids were fantastic. Ellie woke up sick the morning of the wedding (she actually threw up in the car on our way to pick Nikki up for breakfast!) but after napping all morning and most of the afternoon she woke up refreshed and ready to be the star of the evening.

She walked down the aisle with Topher …

Then turned around to walk down it again with me!

She stood beside with me for part of the ceremony, then sat with Nathan for the rest.

She smiled, waved, and twirled for the wedding guests …

And thoroughly enjoyed popping all the bubbles at the end of the ceremony!

Topher was a pro!

He had been reluctant to even be involved in the wedding at first, but he took Ellie’s hand and walked her down the aisle, and then solemnly went to his spot with the groomsmen and stood like a little statue for the entire ceremony.

His arms got tired of holding the pillow, though. I’m glad he didn’t have the real rings!

The original plan was for Nathan to take the kids back to the hotel after the ceremony and a few pictures, since the wedding started at 6:00 p.m. and they’re typically in bed before 7:00, but they were both behaving so well that we decided to let them stay.

Topher had an absolute blast getting his picture taken at the photo booth,

And even though they were both exhausted and a little on the whiny side after their long day, it was nothing a little Paw Patrol on the LeapPad couldn’t fix!

We left as a family right before the dance started, at about 10:30 p.m. I couldn’t believe how amazing the kids were! We definitely don’t make a habit of late nights with the kids in tow but we might be a little bit more willing to risk it now that they’ve proven they can behave themselves in public when overtired!

Comments

Topher and Ellie are both absolutely adorable!! I love how Topher thought that “dressing up” meant being Darth Vader. Gotta love that innocence.

Don’t you just love how unpredictable little ones can be at weddings? When Isla was a flower girl last September I didn’t know if it would be cute or an absolute disaster. After the rehearsal it was looking to be the latter, but the kids were all great during the real thing!

Topher and Ellie got their sillies out at the rehearsal, but I don’t think it hurt that we bribed them to behave at the real deal either :P I’m just glad the bride was relaxed enough (and realistic enough!) to realize that Ellie’s only two and wasn’t going to stand still for the whole ceremony no matter what we did. She thought Ellie’s twirling and dancing and yelling “BOAT! BOAT!” during the ceremony was cute, so I went with it :)